The world of “Nanotechnology” has been simultaneously heralded by some who view its advances as providing the next great technological evolution and derided by others who view it as just the latest buzz-word technology to attract venture capital investment. While their fundamental views on the promise of the technology are at odds, members of both camps will point to a number of common issues that nanotechnology must address if it is ever to fulfill its promises.
Of particular note is that, while both camps tend to acknowledge that nanomaterials often have unique and potentially valuable properties, e.g., structural, electrical, opto-electrical and thermoelectric, the ability of scientists and eventually users or consumers to access these unique and valuable properties can present a substantial hurdle to realizing the full benefits of these materials.
For example, while nanowire based electronic circuits may present potentially wide ranging benefits to the electronics industry, interfacing with these materials to produce such new and improved circuits has not met with great success, with a few notable exceptions: see, e.g., Duan et al., Nature 425:274-278 (2003). In the case of nanowire electronics, the inability to access the advantages of the nanomaterial is largely physical, as the material's dimensions are so small that making actual physical or electrical contact, in a robust repeatable manufacturing process, becomes substantially more difficult.
Relatedly, despite extremely promising theoretical energy conversion efficiencies, previously described nanomaterial based photovoltaic devices have not achieved anything close to the expected efficiencies, largely due to an inability to successfully and completely integrate such materials into photovoltaic cells to access the converted energy. In this case, the inability to access the properties of the material is believed to be, at least in part, a chemical issue, involving both the surface of the nanomaterials through which access is desired, and the ability of the nanomaterials to efficiently function in their particular composite environment.
Whether a function of electrical connectability, or chemical integration of nanomaterials, it will be appreciated that there is a need for processes that produce more readily integrated nanocrystal populations, as well as the nanocrystal populations themselves. The present invention meets these and a variety of other needs.